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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30075867">in light of day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/arleaux/pseuds/arleaux'>arleaux</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>a word is worth a thousand pictures [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, Expectations and waiting, Falling In Love, Fluff, Keiji's inner thoughts and admirations, M/M, Moving In Together, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:28:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,359</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30075867</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/arleaux/pseuds/arleaux</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Within their apartment or anywhere else, Keiji liked it when Koutarou sat by the window.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>a word is worth a thousand pictures [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2214801</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in light of day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Keiji, do you want me to move? Because I can move."</p><p>"It's alright, Koutarou."</p><p> </p><p></p><div>
  <p>"Are you sure? There's room right here to sit right next to me!" Koutarou moves to get out of his criss-cross sitting position, but Keiji reassures him that he was fine where he remains.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"'I'll be fine right here, Kou. Just enjoy your coffee and relax. We've been setting up that TV stand all day." Keiji sips from his own mug as he leans over the counter, partially worn out by the afternoon they've been having. He sees Koutarou remain at the plush-bench breakfast nook they had moved into their living room not too longer ago. Koutarou loves that bench. Though they now had over four pieces of furniture besides their bed, Keiji notes how much Koutarou enjoys that bench and the section of their house. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>His second favorite place is the bedroom, of course. For obvious reasons. It's a bedroom, their bedroom, and Koutarou hand picked the curtains in their room. He personally made sure that he bought the type that flowed lightly for that "cool, mysterious effect" in the mornings. It's a place where they lay, love, and have the oddest conversations over essentially nothing before getting up and being a real person. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Keiji enjoys the kitchen, as does Koutarou. While Keiji can't cook to save his life, that didn't stop him from finding comfort in sitting at the counter top with a chipped mug that he keeps because he felt too bad about throwing it away. Koutarou's second-oldest sister gave it to him when he graduated from high school. It had his initials and her own, which made Koutarou jealous enough to shun both his sibling and the cursed pottery for an entire hour getting hungry enough to ask her if he could use the car to take Keiji to his favorite food-stand. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>That was so long ago, and Keiji always wonders why that specific day reminds him of its existence every time he used this cup. Koutarou didn't get fussy about the cup anymore, but it was definitely because he wrote "+BK" at the bottom of "AB &amp; AK forever". </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He sips from the cup. Its contents woke him up. Koutarou's voice did a better job than coffee. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>They had moved in to their first place together after a whole seven years of planning out their adult lives. He had thought about it every day back in his first year in university, but Keiji knew well that they would have to wait for a time when they were both ready, both as professionals and as people still struggling to define what settling down actually meant. Now, they were both in their mid-twenties. The world danced at their fingertips, and with the world came the endless possibilities that waltzed with growing up.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>That counter, that bed, that plush-bench, the chip in the cup - all trophies and souvenirs of growing up. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Koutarou's slightly shorter hair and Keiji's slightly longer hair - small details that came with growing up. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The way coffee tasted better in certain mugs - enormous details that came with growing up. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Keiji sips his coffee once more, and then places it gently back onto the counter. He props an elbow onto the counter and leans one side of his face onto it. Silently, he looked to his favorite spot in the apartment; the window. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The window is a box. It reveals to him a different sky every hour, the park so conveniently located in front of their apartment, and the special tower he and Koutarou visited too often in the middle of the week.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>He forgot about what lived behind it, because what makes him love that window is the man in front of it, struggling to pick up the last of his rice on a plate. That's what happens every time when he opts for a pair of chopsticks instead of a spoon, but he refuses to admit defeat.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>A window created four simple lines, like any other window in the world. Many windows are boxes, or arches, or circles in cathedrals adorned with colored light on the inside. But it was also envisioned something like a portrait. Keiji often thought of that, but only when Koutarou's in front of the window.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>The outline of his face, Keiji had memorized it like the familiar shape of his name on the bills they had started receiving at their new address. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Keiji remembered studying Bokuto Koutarou for the first "real" time they had sat next to each other on the bus in his second year. It was a Saturday and Koutarou was sleeping by the window after a big game. For him, it was unusual, seeing that he was always the energetic one before and after big events. On this particular Saturday, Keiji was the one wide awake. He pondered too much about past and the future, but for one of the few times in the school setting he was truly pulled from his head and invited back into the present. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Keiji liked that time. When Koutarou asked Keiji a few weeks later about why he switched seats with Onaga, he couldn't answer him with the full thing, so he told him that he liked the view. The view - everything, from Koutarou, to Keiji's own hand that was a dash too far away from the carve of Koutarou's silhouette. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Then there was his first time meeting Koutarou in the hall of his stadium before his final professional game of the season. Keiji found him in the hallway, staring at the pictures of MSBY's greatest eras. At the end of the hall was a great window, and Keiji found himself frozen in that moment. Everything was still, as if things were painted to stay that way. If it were part of a story board, the bottom text outlined his thoughts in the boldest font to end the chapter.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <em>"Look to the left of those pictures and see the blank space, Bokuto Koutarou. That'll be for you one day. Just you wait."</em>
  </p>
</div><div>
  <p>And the wedding, of course. On his wedding day, when Keiji's mother walked him down the aisle, the rest of the room froze in that moment, rather than himself. He walked, and as he looked up, his Koutarou waited for him, just like the hallway, or under the Bokuto family's cherry tree a year after Keiji's graduation when Koutarou finally felt it was right to let Keiji know that he loved him. Back then, Keiji appreciated Koutarou's decision about the right moment. He also appreciated the promise they made each other at the start of their journey; with time and hurdles, everything would work out. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>At the altar, Koutarou waited once again with one of his many faces of determination. They had waited long enough, and it made Keiji crack up the first night together as overexcited married men after they reminisced over those few extra moments between the door and the papers. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Now, Koutarou sits mere feet away from him with no other place he wanted to be but with his overworked husband. There, was the concrete proof that people who knew how to accept fate and the beauty of the way things turned out also knew how to love.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>Keiji gazed at the box that perfectly encased the special guy with the face, mind, and soul he'd like study for the rest of their lives.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Uhh.. Keiji?"</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Yes, Koutarou?" </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Are you sure you don't want to sit here?" Koutarou pointed down at his seat with his spoon still in hand. A grain of rice plopped back onto his plate. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Of course, Koutarou. I like the view." </p>
</div><div>
  <p>"Keiji, my sweet dear, my radiant dove of morning Tokyo; I'm in the way. You'll have to wait until I've finished this impossible task." He attempted to pick up the grain once again.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>"And that's fine with me, darling, that's fine with me." In light of day, or at night, or in the evening, he'd wait. Out of love, he'd wait.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <em>I'll wait for you, always, just as you'd do the same for me. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>Thank you for waiting, Koutarou. </em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <em>I'll see you at the next window.</em>
  </p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!</p><p>Find my Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/solarmye">here.</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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